Move the Mosque! (and Other Anniversary Notes)

Feisal Abdul Rauf, back from his State Department-sponsored trip overseas in time for the 9/11 anniversary, said his piece this week on the Op-Ed page of the Times. If you haven’t yet read his Op-Ed, please hasten to do so. What he writes is so generous, so unself-pitying, so utterly reasonable, and, in Andrew Sullivan’s words, “so transparently constructive, so evidently in the interests not only of domestic peace but of strategic victory against Jihadist terror” that one is “at a loss to understand why so many have reacted so ferociously to this project.” (I’m pleased to note that the imam is again calling the project Cordoba House—a much better name than Park51, which sounds like a Korean teenager’s internet handle).

In contrast, we have the absurd, exasperating furor over an obscure Florida pastor, the Rev. Yosemite Sam, who threatens to gather his literally dozens of parishioners around a cheery bonfire of Korans. Thanks to the ability of the internet/cable newschat nexus to turn the entire planet into a nasty, petty, bloody-minded small town with extremely loose gun-control laws, authority figures from the President and the Secretary of Defense all the way on down to comparatively “respectable” evangelical demagogues like Franklin Graham have felt obliged to practically beg the Rev. Sam (whose “real” name I prefer not to use) to cease and desist.

Whether the Koran-burning will or will not come off today remains up in the air at this writing. Meanwhile, some stray thoughts. And a proposal.

The thoughts:

While there are similarities between the present worldwide fuss over Koran-burning and the periodic American uproars about flag-burning—which, I recall, have repeatedly prompted sixty-plus United States senators of both parties to support amending the First Amendment to exempt that distasteful form of political expression—there is an important difference: here, no one got killed over the flag. By contrast, there have already been several fatalities (in Afghanistan, where “blasphemy” is a capital crime) on account of the Koran business, even though nothing has actually happened yet. This illustrates the reality that among some Muslims in some parts of the Muslim world, Islam is still at a stage of development akin to that of Christianity in pre-modern times, when disputes over theological fine points regularly led to wholesale slaughter. That, in turn, illustrates the absolute necessity of distinguishing between moderate (or, at least, nonmurderous) Islam and violent Islamist fanaticism—the very distinction that, willy-nilly, the opposition to Cordoba House tries to obliterate.

The First Amendment is one of the wonders of the world, but it imposes a burdensome responsibility. It guarantees the freedom to practice one’s religion, no matter how obnoxious its tenets may appear to persons of other faiths or no faith; and it guarantees the freedom to express one’s opinions, no matter how obnoxious the substance or manner of their expression may appear to persons who do not share them. It protects freedom of religion, and it protects freedom of speech, which includes the freedom to trash religion—religion in general and/or particular religions in particular. The two freedoms are ultimately one and the same. That’s something we can’t realistically expect the rioters in Afghanistan to understand or care about. They’re angry at the Rev. Sam for what he says he wants to do, and they’re angry at the United States Government for not arresting him for saying he wants to do it. We can legitimately sympathize with their indignation on the first point, but there’s not much we can do about the second, unfortunately. Or fortunately.

A similarity between the two burning issues, though, is this: you can’t burn “the” flag, and you can’t burn “the” Koran, either. The flag is a Platonic ideal. As such, it is fireproof. Any particular flag is merely a copy, and you can’t destroy the flag by destroying a flag any more than you can destroy (or even harm) the Constitution by destroying a copy of it. Nor can you destroy the Koran by destroying a copy thereof, or any number of copies. But I can’t claim to understand the emotions involved, really; where religion is concerned, I’m an infidel. So I don’t want to push the point.

The proposal:

Much of the controversy over Cordoba House has focussed on its location. Critics rage that it’s a mere two blocks from the 9/11 site—way too close. Defenders counter that it’s two whole blocks from the 9/11 site—by lower Manhattan standards, real far. Critics say it should be put somewhere else, though they tend to be vague about where. Even some defenders have timidly wondered whether some other spot might be more “appropriate” in terms of the symbolism of it all.

Fortuitously, there exists one location that would be ideal for the so-called “Ground Zero mosque.” That location would be . . . Ground Zero.

The principal goals of the 9/11 attacks were to ignite a civilizational war between Islam and the West, especially America; to marginalize moderate Muslims and strengthen violent Islamists; to expose American religious tolerance and pluralism as a sham; and to recruit young Muslims to the most brutal, retrograde, reactionary form of jihad.

The principal goals of Cordoba House, as outlined by Feisal Abdul Rauf in the Times, are to promote “recognition of the rights of others, tolerance and freedom of worship”; to facilitate “building bridges between religious groups”; “to strengthen relations between the Western and Muslim worlds”; “to help counter radical ideology”; to serve as “a center for unification and healing”; and to undermine “the ability of anti-American radicals to recruit young, impressionable Muslims by falsely claiming that America persecutes Muslims for their faith.”

It would be hard to imagine a more powerful, pointed, passionate rebuke to Al Qaeda’s brand of twisted Islamism than for an open-hearted cultural and religious institution representing the tolerant, democratic Muslims of New York to be part of the risen World Trade Center.

Also, we could use the company, and the building could use another non-governmental tenant.

At the New Republic, Leon Wieseltier explains what “collective responsibility” means and does not mean, what sacredness is and is not, and the difference between sentiment and principle. (Subscription required, I’m afraid—but who knows, maybe they’ll take it out from behind the paywall at some point.)

Hendrik Hertzberg is a senior editor and staff writer at The New Yorker. He regularly blogs about politics.